City of Glasgow Chorus, 18/05/2014

30th Anniversary Concert
Verdi : Requiem

Anush Hovhannisyan, soprano
Rebecca Afonwy-Jones, mezzo-soprano
Ronan Busfield, tenor
Paul Keohone, baritone
The City of Glasgow Chorus
Orchestra of Scottish Opera
Bartosz Zurakowski

I doubt that any regular reader of this blog will be surprised when I say that Verdi's Requiem is, hands down, my favourite choral piece.  Popular it certainly is, but hackneyed, it can never be.  Every representation offers its own insights, and this was a very respectable one, with solid performances on all fronts.

The organising force was the City of Glasgow Chorus, and they delivered with great conviction, particularly the "Sanctus".  If I have one criticism, it's the diction - their Latin had a slight, but quite distinctly Scottish taint to it, which took a moment to adjust to.  There was also a slightly odd thing at the start of the "Libera me", where their first line was delivered in a curiously rigid fashion.  If memory serves (and I have sung the Requiem) the line is marked senza misura, whereas this definitely had a metre.  I don't know if this was the conductor's idea, or the chorus master's, but it did jar a bit.

The young quartet of soloists was, on the whole, good.  Keohone was stalwart, Busfield a little thin in tone but very earnest, and Afonwy-Jones displayed a nice, velvety timbre.  Hovhannisyan, however, while possessing an undeniably attractive voice, sounded frankly bored by the whole proceedings, which was a bit off-putting.  She got more involved in the "Libera me", but by then it was too little, too late; I could no longer believe in whatever emotion she was attempting to project.

For the occasion, the chorus had borrowed the orchestra of Scottish Opera,with very positive results.   Originally the concert was supposed to be conducted by the Chorus Master, Graham Taylor, but apparently after a highly successful collaboration on a concert in Poland, they invited the conductor on that occasion, Bartosz Zurakowski, to team up once again.  Without any knowledge of Taylor's abilities as a conductor, I can, however, say that I think it was worth inviting Zurakowski back.  He's a mobile, energetic conductor, very committed to the work, and much of the vitality of the performance came from his sure hand at the helm.

[Next : 27th May]